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COLLECTED POEMS: 1921-1931.
(New York: The Objectivist Press, 1934). 195 x 130 mm. (7 1/2 x 5"). viii, 134 pp. FIRST EDITION. With a preface by Wallace Stevens.
Publisher's rose-colored buckram, spine with printed paper label. Housed in a modern red buckram clamshell box backed with green morocco with gilt lettering. SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR to his editor on the front flyleaf: "William Carlos Williams / to / Jack Thirlwall." With an invoice laid in for the purchase (see below). Spine a little sunned, leaves faintly toned at edges because of paper stock, otherwise fine.
This is an excellent copy of a collection of Williams' poetry written primarily in the 1920s, inscribed to the author's friend and editor. William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) was a practicing physician as well as a Pulitzer-prize winning American poet. According to the Poetry Foundation, "Though his career was initially overshadowed by other poets, he became an inspiration to the Beat generation in the 1950s and 60s. He was known as an experimenter, an innovator, a revolutionary figure in American poetry." In a review of this collection following its publication, the New York Times called the poet: "an unconquerable individualist. In an age of success through easy compromises he has indulged himself in the luxury of integrity. He has written some of the most obscure poetry of our time, just as Einstein has written some of the most obscure equations." This copy is inscribed to City College Professor of English John C. Thirlwall (whom Williams calls "Jack"), a friend of the poet in the last decade of his life and the editor of "The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams," published in 1957. The signature here is scrawled in a large, palsied hand, reflecting the stroke Williams had when he was 58. A scarce book in itself, this collection is seldom found inscribed, especially when the inscribee is as important to Williams as was Thirlwall. Although without signs of later provenance, our volume comes from the collection of the noted Southern California poet Laure-Anne Bosselaar, who, according to a laid-in invoice, purchased the book for $1,995 from Jett Whitehead in 1996. (ST20338-089)
Price: $3,500.00